


mending fences

by starkly



Category: Avengers Assemble (Cartoon)
Genre: Getting Back Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Break Up, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 07:28:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13829376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkly/pseuds/starkly
Summary: After an unfortunate period of flying solo, the Avengers are assembled again and ready to save the world. But the same can't be said for Steve and Tony, whose relationship is up in the air despite Steve's hope that they can put their life back together. With Tony seemingly avoiding him, it looks like some things aren't so easily fixed.





	mending fences

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for the 2018 [Cap-IronMan](https://cap-ironman.dreamwidth.org/) Alphabet Challenge! I claimed the letter "M" and juggled around a few prompts, then ended up combining them. My main prompt was **meraki** (adj., greek: pouring yourself wholeheartedly into something, such as cooking, and doing so with soul, creativity, and love). Additionally influenced by **mechanic** (noun, 1. a manual worker: artisan; 2. machinist; especially: one who repairs machines) and [this great meta](http://lady-pei.tumblr.com/post/171142035213/why-you-should-be-watching-avengers-assemble) by lady-pei on Tumblr.
> 
> This takes place at the very beginning of Avengers Assemble, directly referencing the pilot, and the Dracula and Super Adaptoid episodes (with some dialogue directly taken from the last one). Steve and Tony were dating pre-series, and broke up when the Avengers broke up.
> 
> Thanks to [cupcakeenigma](http://cupcakeenigma.tumblr.com) for the beta! Any mistakes left are all mine.

 

Arriving at Avengers Tower, Steve may have initially complained he was thinking of something a little more spartan for the team’s living quarters, but any further objections are quickly quashed when he discovers the shower in his private bathroom has over fifteen water pressure options. Maybe they can use a little luxury after what they’ve just been through.

 

What Tony’s just been through, especially. Steve can still remember the sight of the reactor being torn from Tony’s chest, hear Tony screaming as it’s ripped from his body—he’ll never forget it, thanks to his perfect memory. Compared to that, swapping bodies with Red Skull had been a cake walk.

 

And yet despite all that, even the mansion getting blown up, Tony thought they should get back together. The team, that is. On the subject of ‘them’ he’s been uncharacteristically silent, but Steve’s not surprised. When the team had disbanded, they had too, barely a direct word spoken between them about it. Steve had just assumed Tony wanted the break up to be as clean as possible. Now he doesn’t know what to think.

 

Tony had reassembled the Avengers for him. True, he tried to disassemble them almost as quickly afterwards, but the point remains. It seems like something they should talk about. Tony was afraid of keeping the team together, of taking a leadership position, in case something happened to the rest of them. But he’d done it anyway, for Steve.

 

Or maybe Steve is just reading into things and being full of himself. Maybe Tony is just doing his duty as a superhero and former teammate. Whatever it is, Tony clearly doesn’t want to talk about it. In fact, Tony doesn’t want to talk to him much at all, given how infrequently he’s seen Tony these past few weeks unless it involved the team. If he wants to talk to Tony, it looks like he’ll have to take matters into his own hands.

 

* * *

 

Steve used to go into Tony’s workshop uninvited all the time before. Now he hesitates outside the door, wondering if he’d even be welcome. Tony used to enjoy all those unannounced visits; Steve can perfectly recall Tony’s surprised but pleased expression every time he showed up, like he didn’t think it would happen again despite all the prior evidence.

 

It’s his memory of that expression that has Steve taking a deep breath and finally asking, “JARVIS? Is Tony inside?”

 

“Mr. Stark is currently in his workshop, though he is not in a state to entertain guests at the moment,” JARVIS replies.

 

Steve frowns at such a vague warning. “What does that mean? Is he okay?”

 

Whatever JARVIS says in reply, he ignores it, pushing open the door and striding inside. He doesn’t know what he’s expecting—if villains had broken in and hurt Tony or tried to kidnap him, the alarms would have gone off, or JARVIS would have alerted them. What he sees is Tony slumped over his workbench, and he bolts halfway across the room before he realizes Tony’s just sleeping.

 

Sighing in relief, he slows his approach, not wanting to wake him. Has Tony been overworking himself again? He’s normally so careful not to let it show when he does, and Steve looks around, trying to see what’s got him so focused this time. He’s slumped over a bunch of paperwork, and the screens in front of him are a mix of code and schematics which fail to give Steve a clear picture of anything. He sighs, figuring Tony must have been trying to work on multiple things at once and pushed himself a little too far.

 

Normally Steve likes that about Tony. His determination, his work ethic. When he goes overboard, however, he really goes hard.

 

After a moment’s consideration, Steve carefully picks Tony up, super strength helping lift him like Tony weighs nothing, and walks over to the cot crammed in the corner for occasions such as these. He sets Tony down as gently as possible, then drapes the blanket folded at the foot of the cot over him. Tony doesn’t wake this whole time, which is impressive, or maybe worrying, given he knows what a light sleeper Tony is.

 

A sleeping Tony makes for a very pretty picture, but Steve just sighs and turns away. He debates leaving a note for when Tony wakes, but instead he just tells JARVIS to alert him when Tony gets up and leaves him to rest. He’ll have to try again later, though he’s a little more optimistic. Tony hasn’t been avoiding him on purpose, he’s just been caught up in his work. He’s probably not used to living with so many people and juggling Avengers business on top of everything else again. At least that’s what Steve’s telling himself.

 

* * *

 

Tony must really be exhausted, because he sleeps through the rest of the evening and into the night. Steve wakes the next morning and goes through his usual workout, and it’s not until he’s out of the shower afterward that JARVIS lets him know that Tony has woken up and is in the common area kitchen. He quickly dresses in sweatpants and an undershirt so he can get down there and find Tony before the man disappears back into his workshop.

 

When he enters the kitchen, there isn’t any food anywhere, but there is an array of arrows spread out on the table. Clint and Tony are bent over them, talking quickly and half speaking over each other, and Tony’s laughing at something as Steve stops in the doorway. Tony’s looking much better now that he’s had some sleep, and Steve misses that smile more than he realized.

 

It’s a highly specific smile, the kind that says ‘I went out of my way to do something for you but it wasn’t a big deal please don’t thank me’ and happened to come out a lot when Tony was helping Steve acclimate to the future in the early days after being unfrozen. Steve used to think it was just posturing—since when did Tony not want people to fawn over him?—but he quickly learned how genuine it actually was. How genuine Tony actually was.

 

And here that smile is again, directed at Clint of all people.

 

“Don’t we have a ‘no weapons on the table’ rule?” he says as he moves closer, announcing his presence at last. Clint just smirks as he looks up, but Tony seems a little surprised to see him.

 

“Only because Thor broke the last one with Mjolnir, so I figure that rule only applies to him,” Clint says.

 

That’s a valid point, so Steve just keeps walking to the fridge and starts taking out ingredients. “Anyone want a smoothie?”

 

“Sure, I’ll take one,” Clint answers, but Tony shakes his head, backing away from the table.

 

“Rain check on that, Cap, I’ve got work to get back to,” he says even though it’s seven in the morning, which is early for Tony on his normal days. He turns to Clint and points at the arrows and adds, “Let me know about adjustments,” before casually hurrying from the kitchen.

 

Clint watches him go with wide eyes, then turns a slightly accusatory gaze to Steve. “Jeez, Cap, what’d you do?”

 

“I don’t...know,” Steve replies, just as baffled. He doesn’t chase after Tony, though maybe he should. He didn’t do that last time, and he knows he should have. Hindsight is 20/20 as they say nowadays.

 

“Well whatever it is, you should probably fix it before Tony decides to break up the band again,” Clint says, gathering up all the arrows and sticking them in his quiver. “After smoothies, of course.”

 

* * *

 

Steve doesn’t have time to fix anything because the next thing they know, Avengers Tower is being attacked by vampires. It’s weird that it takes fighting off Dracula and his vampire army to make things feel normal again, but Steve’s ‘normal’ hasn’t been genuinely normal for years. Once Dracula retreats for the time being, they rush back to the Tower to cure Black Widow of her vampirism. It’s a tense few moments until she wakes, but when she does Steve glances over at Tony, smiling.

 

“Good work, Shellhead,” he says quietly, putting a hand on Tony’s shoulder, while Clint explains what happened to Natasha.

 

Tony shrugs, the motion visible even in the armor. “It was easy once we figured out the gamma trick.”

 

Around them, the rest of the team welcomes Natasha back to the land of the living, and Tony flips up his faceplate to do the same. Once she gets her bearings, she shoos them off, all except Tony. Steve isn’t exactly proud of himself for it, but he lingers after he leaves, letting his enhanced hearing pick up the conversation inside the lab.

 

“Thinking of sticking around for good?” Tony asks. There’s the sound of metal moving, probably the armor disassembling.

 

“Are you?” Natasha shoots back.

 

“I know you’re sore about before,” Tony says quietly, and Steve nearly has to strain to hear.

 

“I told you, you’ll have me when you need me. I’m not committing to something you’re not a hundred percent committed to yet.”

 

“I am a hundred percent committed!”

 

“Did you talk to Steve?”

 

Silence. Natasha sighs.

 

“It’s not him, it’s you, right? Just talk to him, Tony,” she says, a surprising amount of sympathy in her tone.

 

There’s more silence, then the sound of something being handed over. “No promises. Here.”

 

“What’s this?”

 

“Upgraded the gauntlets. They’ve got better tranquilizers and more settings on the ranged stingers. Energy grenades too.”

 

“How’d you know I needed… Of course. Big Brother’s always watching, huh?”

 

Tony snorts. “Keep it up and I’ll take them back.”

 

“No you won’t.” Steve can’t see her, but it sounds like she’s smirking.

 

“Nah, I won’t.”

 

Nobody says anything else for a moment, and Steve realizes it’s because someone’s walking toward the door, and he bolts instead of sticking around.

 

* * *

 

It hurts knowing Tony’s purposefully avoiding him. He doesn’t like not knowing what he did wrong, either. He’d thought, with the Avengers back together, maybe Tony would want them to get back together too. Not that they’d never talk in a non-professional capacity again.

 

“Has anyone noticed anything weird with Tony lately?” he asks the rest of the team, just to make sure he’s not completely off base.

 

“Weird how?” Clint replies, feet up on the coffee table. On the couch opposite him, Thor and Hulk don’t pay any attention to them, currently locked in battle through some video game.

 

“Just...weird.”

 

“No more than usual,” Clint says, shaking his head.

 

“Tin Man bought all new games for Hulk and Thor,” Hulk tells him, still not taking his eyes off the TV screen. “But he always buys new games.”

 

“Aye,” Thor agrees, elbowing Hulk in the side to try and distract him. “He also purchased a miniature refrigerator at my request for the training room.”

 

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Steve says, sighing. So much for getting more information before jumping to conclusions.

 

“What are you talking about?” Sam asks as he walks in with a tablet in his hand.

 

“Stark,” Clint answers before Steve can say it’s nothing.

 

Sam tucks the tablet under his arm, looking at Clint. “What about him?”

 

“Cap’s trying to get gossip on him.”

 

“I am not,” Steve butts in, crossing his arms over his chest. “I just wanted to make sure he’s doing all right. You know, after all the vampires the other day.”

 

“If you want to check on him, he’s down in the ‘shop,” Sam says helpfully. “We were just going over specs for an upgrade to the Falcon armor.”

 

“Yeah, go ‘check on him,’” Clint pipes up with a wink. Steve rolls his eyes, though Sam just looks confused.

 

Steve heads down to the workshop despite Clint’s teasing. He should’ve done this from the beginning, instead of resorting to eavesdropping and gossip. Since when did he run from his problems?

 

Tony’s bent over his workbench, focusing on something small in front of him when Steve walks in. Before Steve can say anything, Tony’s head pops up and he actually smiles when he sees Steve, startling him into stopping in the middle of the room.

 

“Hey, glad you’re here! Hold on just one more second...”

 

Tony bends back down, engrossed in whatever he’s working on, and Steve just stands there and stares. He’s always liked watching Tony work, though he hasn’t really gotten a chance to do so since the Avengers reformed. He stays quiet, not wanting to interrupt, until finally Tony hops off his chair and brings the finished product over to him.

 

“It’s the watch you broke, you know, before,” Tony explains, holding it out to him. “I finally fixed it.”

 

A little stunned, Steve takes the watch from him, holding it in his palm. It’s an old analog watch, just something he bought cheap because he needed one, that he’d accidentally smashed in a fight with some AIM goons. He remembers complaining about it to Tony afterwards, taking off the broken watch and setting it aside to throw away later, but Tony had taken it instead.

 

“I can’t believe you still have this,” he says, though what he really can’t believe is that Tony bothered to fix it now, after all this time. Steve got a new watch ages ago, and the watch has no sentimental value.

 

“I forgot about it for a while there,” Tony admits, shrugging, “but I found it and remembered I was going to fix it for you, so I did.”

 

“Thank you.” Steve looks down at the watch, rubbing his thumb over the smooth glass, no longer cracked and starting to shatter. “Tony, I—”

 

“Good thing you’re wearing your uniform, I’ve got something else for you!” Tony adds brightly, clapping his hands together. “Let me suit up and I’ll show you.”

 

Steve can only watch as Tony practically bounds away to get his armor, and he sighs and sets the watch down on Tony’s workbench. He’ll look at whatever else Tony has for him, then they’ll talk, he promises himself.

 

* * *

 

Justin Hammer, of all people, messes up his plans this time. The one good thing about this Super-Adaptoid fiasco is that Tony seems convinced he doesn’t need that super fancy Captain America armor or an ‘upgraded’ shield. The team trudges back into the Tower afterwards, Steve telling everyone they did a good job today before they split up and return to their rooms. He strips out of his uniform and showers off the grime from the battle, then puts on some comfortable clothes so he can relax. He’s drying his hair when he remembers he left the watch Tony fixed in his workshop.

 

To his surprise, he bumps into Tony himself in the hall as he heads down to get it. Tony looks freshly showered as well, still rubbing a towel over his hair, and he smiles when he sees Steve.

 

“Okay, wait a second,” Tony says as they walk down to the workshop together. “Explain to me again how you memorized all our moves without the aid of a single machine?”

 

“You just wouldn’t understand good, old-fashioned human ingenuity,” Steve teases, hoping Tony can’t see how nervous he is.

 

“Maybe, maybe not,” Tony says with a shrug. “But… I’d be willing to learn.”

 

This is it. He’s not going to run away from this anymore, and he won’t let Tony either. “All right. Let’s go over the battle,” he offers.

 

“Hold on.” Tony pulls a notepad out from under his arm and holds it up. “I want to take notes.”

 

They stop in front of the door to Tony’s workshop, just looking at each other. After a long moment, Steve says,

 

“Are we finally going to talk about this?”

 

Tony sighs, the comfort of their previous banter gone, but he motions for Steve to follow him into the workshop.

 

“I feel like you’ve been avoiding me,” Steve says as soon as they’re both inside, jumping straight into it before one of them finds a way to dodge the conversation.

 

“I haven’t. I’ve been busy,” Tony protests, gesturing around them at all the stuff in the lab: multiple half-finished Iron Man suits, gear for Natasha and Clint and Sam, even some stuff for Hulk. Not to mention the Captain America armor and shield he was supposedly working on.

 

“You can’t keep using the Avengers as an excuse to not talk about us.”

 

Tony throws his hands up in frustration, pacing in front of his computer screens. “What ‘us’ is there to talk about? I already ruined any ‘us.’”

 

Steve frowns. “What do you mean?”

 

“Uh, hello? Breaking up the first time? Us and the team?”

 

“The team breaking up wasn’t all your fault. It was...complicated.”

 

Tony shakes his head, clearly not seeing it that way. “The Avengers were my life, Steve. The team and...you.”

 

Steve stays silent, turning the gravity of that statement over in his mind. He feels the same—he’s always felt the same, and he knows that Tony knows it. At least, he’d thought Tony did. “My watch. Why’d you really fix it?”

 

“You know me, Cap. I see something broken, I fix it.”

 

“Like us?”

 

Tony’s the one silent this time, gripping the end of his towel tightly where it hangs around his neck. “I thought maybe some things couldn’t be fixed.”

 

“Bullcrap!” Steve waves a hand at Tony, at the reactor in his chest. “You’re Tony Stark. There’s nothing you can’t fix.”

 

Tony crosses his arms in front of him, covering up the reactor. “Yeah, well, this time it’s not just up to me.”

 

“And you didn’t think to, maybe, just talk to me instead of giving me some metaphorical fixed watch?”

 

“Actually, the watch isn’t metaphorical, it’s a metaphor—”

 

“You know what I mean, Tony!”

 

Tony sighs and lets his arms fall to his sides again. “You weren’t bringing it up either.”

 

Steve drags a hand back through his hair, frustrated. “Then what are we doing dancing around like this now that we are talking? All this pretending to butt heads all the time like we aren’t a great team?”

 

“It’s not always pretending,” Tony points out, and they stare at each other for a long moment. Finally, Steve lets out a huff of laughter, standing there with his hands on his hips.

 

“I like butting heads with you, Tony. I like working with you even better.”

 

“Purely professionally, of course,” Tony says, hands out like he’s waiting for confirmation.

 

“You know, for someone so smart, you sure are an idiot.”

 

“Oh yeah, like I’ve never heard that one before—”

 

Steve reaches out and takes Tony by the hand before he can finish speaking, pulling him close. His other hand comes up to cup Tony’s face, making him trail off as he stares into Steve’s eyes, and Steve brushes a thumb over his cheekbone.

 

“Does this seem professional to you?” he asks softly, their faces mere inches away from each other.

 

“Not really, so we should probably...stop.” Tony doesn’t pull away, a hopeful glint in his eye, and his Adam's apple bobs as he swallows.

 

Throwing caution out the window, Steve slowly closes the gap between them, kissing Tony sweetly. Tony’s eyes flutter shut and he leans into the kiss, his hair brushing against Steve’s face. It’s as soft as Steve remembers, and he shifts his hand from Tony’s cheek to cup the back of his head, fingers carding through the silky strands. When they break the kiss a moment later, Steve rests his forehead against Tony’s, keeping his hand tangled in Tony’s damp hair.

 

“That’s fraternization,” Tony says after a moment’s silence, but he’s grinning now, both hands settled on Steve’s hips like they belong there.

 

“We don’t have fraternization rules,” Steve reminds him.

 

“Seems like an oversight,” Tony replies lightly, and Steve laughs and kisses him again, making him add, “Or maybe not.”

 

“I missed the Avengers a lot,” Steve confesses, though it’s not much of a secret. “But I missed you even more. Do you think we can start again?”

 

Tony leans back a little, searching Steve’s eyes. “I’d rather start right where we left off.”

 

Steve laughs again and nods, wrapping an arm around Tony’s waist and dipping him backwards as he kisses him harder this time, not letting up until his message has been made perfectly clear. When he finally does draw back, Tony’s breathing is a little strained, and Steve smirks, smug.

 

“I think we can work something out,” he says, steadying Tony on his feet only for Tony to throw himself back at Steve and kiss him again. Thankfully, Steve doesn’t mind. He’ll catch Tony every time, whether they’re Avengers or not, and he knows Tony will always do the same for him no matter what kind of trouble they get into. That’s just how they are, and why they’ve always been better together.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find this fic [here](http://aleator.tumblr.com/post/171638566549) at Tumblr as well! Thanks for reading.


End file.
